Liam Barr

You do it without noticing.
Someone gets something wrong and you put them right.
Certain you are being helpful.
Most of the time you wouldn't even call it correcting.

But watch how it lands.
Nobody has ever been corrected and lit up with gratitude.
Nobody says "Thank you, I love being wrong."
They go quiet and a small distance opens between you.

Here is the part nobody sees.
The fixing was never really for them.
It was the quiet reassurance of knowing better.
But that comes with a cost.

Before you set someone straight, ask what you actually want.
To be right, or to be close.

You run the maths a hundred times a day without noticing.
Someone is too slow, someone is rude, someone on the phone is an idiot.
Every tally comes out the same. You on top and everyone else short.

Run the odds on that.
Either the whole world is a fool and you are the exception, or your maths is broken.

The honest bet is the second one.

So flip it. Assume everyone you meet has it sorted and you are the one still learning.
The slow one is teaching patience.
The rude one is showing you how fast you judge.

Your irritation was never a verdict on them.
It was a lesson with your name on it.

A flood on the far side of the world caves in your whole afternoon.
You read the headline and feel it land somewhere behind your ribs.
There is nothing you can do from eight thousand kilometres away and still it takes you.

Meanwhile the woman two doors down carries her bins out alone again.
You have never once offered.

Strange how grief travels.
It reaches you loudest from the places you can do nothing about.
The tragedy close enough to touch goes unnoticed on your own street.

Your concern is real.
It just went somewhere it could never arrive.

Care isn't how bad you feel about the far away.
It's what you do for the near.